Running out of time…

There’s suddenly too much to do and too little time. I’ve got four deadlines due by the end of the month, features commissioned up to May 2009 that I’m hoping to finish by February and a short weekend trip or two (that will hopefully translate into articles). Add to this planning for the new arrival, visits from family, Christmas…

To make matters worse, I’m suddenly bursting with all these great ideas (where were they all these months?)for pitches to my dream markets but am wondering if I’m underestimating how much I can do in the next few months. I’m itching to send these ideas out now; will 6 months later be too late? I’m worried I might lose the enthusiasm to pitch with a new baby around to distract me…

How do freelance writers manage with children around?! If you’re working from home, can you ever get work done? Does the muse return quickly?

 

Goals: why it helps to have them

Talking about the numbers game, I crossed the 120 query mark. It wasn’t as forbidding as I thought it would be. Compare that with 40 odd queries in 2007 and I feel rather accomplished!

With December looming, it is time to think of goals for 2009. With a baby on the way, I might be rather ambitious in aiming for too much. I suspect I’m grossly underestimating how much time this new venture is going to take. I have visions of notebooks in the labour room (yeah, right) or essays on parenting making it to the NYT. Write what you know, the books tell you. That’s what I’m going to try in 2009. Time will tell whether I am being naive or whether it is possible to keep your career on track despite a brief sabbatical.

Perhaps a post in November 2009 will read : “What was I thinking?”

For now, though, 120 queries out is wonderful. Doesn’t matter that the responses haven’t come in droves. With all the life changes we’ve dealt with this year, I’ve got just the right number of assignments, clips and the money is still coming in.

Despite KK’s query challenge now defunct, I still feel like I’ve won.

 

The Click Factor – 3

With some theory behind us, our photography class was given SLR cameras (some film, some digital) and let loose on the streets.

The theme of the day’s project was “People at Work”. The interpretation was left to us. Instead of just shooting blindly, we just had to be mindful of the technical bits like exposure, metering, shutter speed, light etc.

Easy Peasy.

Or so we thought.

The group headed toward the local market. What better place to shoot people at work than a market bustling with vendors and buyers? Goa’s affinity for tourists makes it a colourful, vibrant place with vendors from all over the country competing to sell their wares to foreign and domestic tourists.

We got down to work. For those of us who owned a camera or who were used to travelling, clicking came naturally. We didn’t feel embarrassed or conscious about putting the viewfinder to the eye.

The newbies however hesitated. And it cost them good shots. It take a while, but you soon realise that in India, permission is often not required to shoot people shots. A raise of the eyebrow, a smile and permission is granted.

This got me thinking. As writers, we often hesitate to approach people with seemingly interesting stories. We could be shy ourselves, afraid to intrude into someone else’s space or worried about the response we might get.

So we walk away. Or sit quietly without interrupting a story to ask questions. Or get the bare facts, sometimes distorted and come home wishing you knew more.

I’m not a natural conversationalist. Gimme email and I can look into your soul. Ask me to go interview someone and I’m petrified.

As a writer, I know that the best stories are out there, hiding behind smiles and sneers, behind closed doors that need gentle prying. I’ve got to get out of this ‘not talking to people’ phase. Perhaps I should buy ‘The Shy Writer’ by C Hope Clark. That might get me talking.

Are you shy? Do you hesitate to talk to new people? Any tips on how to overcome this?

 

The Myth of the Paperless Office

Whoever said that the paperless office would become a reality with the proliferation of the internet got his predictions wrong. No matter how much I try, the volume of paper continues to increase. From newspaper cuttings (for future inspiration), to copies of magazines (to study), to clips, notes, research, ideas… the pile is endless. This is not including the spiral-bound notebooks or the personal diaries that catalogue my daily life. Thank goodness for del.icio.us! At least my bookmarks are now online.

It’s a lot easier to manage the pile in India than in the UK. In England, every day’s post would bring a bunch of envelopes, junk mail, bills, invitations from local theatres, notices and god-knows-what. Every paper that had a blank side was kept aside to reuse – a lot of which has travelled across the seven seas and found its way to our new home.

In India, nobody posts unsolicited mail – there’s not much of it to make a pile anyway, and I hope it stays that way.

I’m good at organising my paper – it’s all neatly segregated and labelled. But there’s SO MUCH of it. How do you manage?

 

If this doesn’t get me writing…

Giving up any attempts at Nanowrimo and fiction this year, I’m committing instead to blogging every day during November (as part of NaBloPoMo). Writing thirty posts shouldn’t be too difficult (she says, confidently). That’s what writers do, after all – write.

As the year end approaches (too quickly), I’m keeling over with ideas for queries and articles. I haven’t pitched much since July, when we relocated to India, so the ideas have piled up. And to think, I ambitiously thought I’d be able to start freelancing full-time from August. Ha!

It’s now November. I’m barely settling in. It took three months for our luggage to arrive, including my files and notes. We’ve made two trips to Bombay in between, renovated an old room for home-office space, spent long hours moving furniture, installing electric points and dealing with non-existent broadband connections. Can you blame me for not writing?

Having said that, I *have* made some itsy-bitsy sales in that period. I’m on deadline right now, but a little blogging is good for the fingers. November is going to be the month for pitches. Editors, watch out.

Now, if only the internet works…